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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:35:28 GMT -7
Ricardo Boom
I'm from the Netherlands and here's a bit of extra context: in 2015 a member of the coalition (Henk Bleker) proposed a new law (PAS - Program handling nitrogen) which basically said the government and all the companies in Holland (farmers, construction, ect.) did not have to think about nitrogen emissions, as long as the government could promise to compensate in the future. A lot of advisory committees warned that this was an idiotic proposal, but the government did it anyway. In 2019 the council of state (the one headed by our king) ruled that most of the planned projects couldn't be executed, because the nitrogen emission has already been expelled in the years prior. That's why the farmers (and constructers) protested back in 2019. Then indeed covid happened and the country had a bunch of bigger problems. As for my personal opinion: this all leads back to the clearly imbicile plan from Henk Bleker. If the government sat down with the farmers and constructers back in 2015, we could've had a shot at gradually lowering our emissions.
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:39:14 GMT -7
Dutch representatives of the radical farmers movement Farmers Defence Force were in Poland with their legal advisors, lawjers and jurists in Poland to talk with the Polish government about what is going on in the Netherlands and the pressure and danger the Dutch farmers feel for their future.
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:40:58 GMT -7
Report of an Asia fellow
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:47:17 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:48:30 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:50:47 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:53:29 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:55:24 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:56:36 GMT -7
Hive is Unilever’s global Foods Innovation Centre at the Wageningen Campus in the Netherlands, the Silicon Valley of Food.
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:57:51 GMT -7
This pioneering Dutch farm has found clever ways to generate higher yields using less space and fewer inputs. They’re growing food that’s more sustainable and economical too. Despite being a small, densely populated country, the Netherlands is one of the world’s biggest vegetable exporters. As our demand for food increases, could this efficient approach help define the farms of the future?
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 9:59:28 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 10:04:54 GMT -7
International agricultural university in Wageningen, Gelderland, the Netherlands
Wageningen is a town about 24,5 kilometers (15.22359 miles) to the West of Arnhem
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 11:10:38 GMT -7
Polish agriculture expert shocked after Dutch farmers shot at by police; expert warns of violence seen in Western liberal democracies coming eastDutch farmers are being shot at and labeled “terrorists” simply for peacefully protesting against policies that will bankrupt them, says Director of Poland’s Agriculture Institute Monika Przeworska.Video recorded at the Dutch farmer protests shows a police officer taking a farmer out of his tractor at gunpoint.The Dutch government, pursuing its climate and environmental policy of reducing the emission of nitrogen, is squeezing agricultural production with agricultural targets farmers argue are impossible to meet. These measures come on top of other policies that have affected the sector, such as a ban on fur farming.
According to Monika Przeworska, the director of Poland’s Agriculture Institute, Poland needs to take careful note of what is happening in the West. She argues that Poles need to be aware that what happens in the West is often later transferred eastward as official EU policy. Przeworska told Polish Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja that the Dutch government is treating farmers like “terrorists.”
Reports from the protests seem to bear this out, as footage shows shots being fired in the direction of the tractors. In a tweet, Przeworska vented her anger at the treatment of Dutch farmers.
“Shooting at tractors of protesting farmers in the Netherlands represents a new level reached by Western democracy,” she posted. The head of the Agriculture Institute argues that it is worth looking at what is happening to Polish agriculture. On the one hand, as a result of the war in Ukraine, there is talk of strengthening food security and farmers are being persuaded to increase production despite rising costs. However, at the same time, there is a trend to reduce production for environmental and climate reasons, with the EU’s “Green Deal” deepening the crisis in food production and processing.
The Dutch government’s unfriendly policies toward farmers may spring from the shortage of land for the construction of housing, infrastructure and industry. Now, the government argues that the land farmers own is needed for other things.
Climate protection policies are a useful tool for the Dutch government to create a pretext for reducing the size of the country’s agricultural sector. An estimated 30 percent of farmers are expected to lose their livelihood, but that will not be the end of it. The Dutch government seems to believe that agriculture is not essential and that food can be imported from abroad. It is this attitude that has spawned the mass protests, including the blockades of distribution centers, which have, in turn, led to shortages in shops — all to demonstrate to the public what can happen when there is no local food provider.
On Monday, farmers blockaded 20 distribution centers and highways. As a result, there were empty food shelves in the shops on Tuesday, with shortages of bread, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Remix offers news and commentary from Central Europe, the Visegrád countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. By providing in English a curated selection of what’s trending daily in the local media of the region, Remix offers a look at what Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks are reading everyday and a window on a dynamic region that is shaping the course of Europe’s future. Remix is published by FWD affairs LLC, Budapest, Hungary. Remix is funded in part by the Conservative Batthany Lajos Foundation in Budapest.
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Post by pieter on Jul 28, 2022 11:55:26 GMT -7
Dutch farmers protestsThe 2019–present Dutch farmers protests (Dutch: boerenprotest) is a series of demonstrations by Dutch livestock farmers, characterised by the use of tractors to block roads, and occupy public spaces. The protests were initially triggered by a government proposal to limit agricultural pollution in the Netherlands by halving the country's livestock, but protesting farmers have frequently told media that they are motivated by a perceived lack of respect for their profession by the Dutch populace, media and politicians.
The protests combined several action groups and an amalgamation of larger goals, which included less government regulation for farmers, more air time for pro-farmer sentiments, and more policy to punish Shell and Tata Steel for their part in the emission crisis. The farmers protests were initially popular and supported by a majority of the Dutch population, but support declined significantly since December 2019.BackgroundThe Netherlands has a strong agrarian and livestock sector, which produces significant agricultural exports and the country is the second largest exporter of agricultural produce in the world after the United States. Since the mid-2000s, climate activism and animal rights activism have become more commonplace in the Dutch House of Representatives and general political discourse of The Netherlands, especially with the emergence of the Party for the Animals as a political force. Policy proposals by parties such as the Dutch green party, GroenLinks, and the social liberal D66 have since emphasized the need for farmers to transition into sustainable farming. These policy proposals were consistently met with opposition by farmers and their representatives.
By 2019, The Netherlands entered a nitrogen emission crisis as the RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment; in Dutch Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu) reported that the severely damaging effects of nitrogen on Dutch soil could only be halted by direct action. The institute found that farmers were responsible for 46% of the country's nitrogen emission, mostly due to cow dung produced by the livestock industry. This led Tjeerd de Groot, a member of the House of Representatives for D66, to propose new policy to halve the current Dutch livestock on 9 September 2019. The RIVM's findings coupled with De Groot's policy proposal led to resistance by the Farmers Defense Force, a farmer activist group. It claimed that the institute had used “shady methods” to ”portray” farmers as big time polluters. They claimed that their unfair portrayal as polluters is caused by the governments desire to let the real big time polluters go free. They claimed their fundamental rights were threatened by legislation aiming to lower emissions and demanded that any new legislation would not threaten agricultural undertakings with elimination. They also demanded more research to be undertaken before new legislation be proposed. The government repudiated the accusations of using “shady methods” being used by the RIVM and claimed the numbers were correct.
In addition to the nitrogen emission crisis, Dutch news media have reported that farmers have felt disrespected or threatened in their existence because of increased government regulation on the agricultural and livestock sectors, as well as the popularity of animal rights activism among the Dutch population. An incident that occurred on 13 May 2019, in which up to 200 animal rights activists occupied a pig farm in Boxtel, North Brabant, in the SDouth of the Netherlands sowed fear among livestock farmers and motivated them to organize into collectives such as the Farmers Defense Force and Agractie, which later became key players in the farmers' protests.For more info read this Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_farmers_protests
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Post by karl on Jul 28, 2022 15:05:15 GMT -7
nhPieter
I must say, this has turned in to such a mess with no end in sight. Both sides appear to be turning a situation that is hypothetical away from the reality of producers of food that is real and present.
What is missing, is the search for solutions for people must eat, with this, it is the Federal responsibility to insure of the safety of farm land for this is in the best public interest. For the primary reason of Government, is to collect taxes and provide services, none of this as present is in that context.
Karl
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